Dead Man’s Footsteps

105

Abby walked out into the street in a daze. Her phone started ringing, but it was several moments before she even noticed.

‘Yes, hello?’ Abby blurted.

It was Ricky. She could barely hear him as traffic roared past. ‘Wait,’ she said, hurrying down the street through the rain until she saw a covered doorway. Ducking into it, she said, ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’

‘I’m worried about your mum.’

It took her a moment to be able to reply. To swallow the sob back down her gullet. To slow her breathing down.

‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘Tell me where she is, Ricky, or bring her back to me.’

‘She needs her medication, Abby.’

‘I’ll get it. Just tell me where to bring it.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

A bus stopped in a line of traffic right in front of her. Its engine made it too noisy to speak or hear. She stepped out into the rain again, hurried back up the street and ducked into another shop entrance. She didn’t like the way he said not that simple.

She had a sudden, terrible panic that her mother was dead. Had the spasm killed her, since they had spoken just a short while ago?

She began crying, she couldn’t help it. The shock of what she had read and now this. She was so far out of her depth.

‘Is she all right? Please just tell me if she’s all right.’

‘No, she’s not all right.’

‘But she’s alive.’

‘For the moment.’

Then he ended the call.

‘No!’ she cried out. ‘No! Please!’

She stood leaning against the front door of the shop, not caring whether anyone inside was looking at her or not, rain and tears stinging her eyes, almost blinding her. But not so much that she didn’t see a small brown car drive slowly past.

There were two men inside, the one in the passenger seat on his phone. Both men had short hair: one was totally shaven, the other had a crew cut. Military types. Or police types.

They looked at her the same way as the two men she had seen drive past in the blue car, before she had gone into Hawkes. Her time on the run had sharpened her awareness of everything around her. Something just felt wrong about these two cars.

Each with the passenger on his phone.

Each looking in her direction as they drove past.

Had Hugo Hegarty phoned the police? Was she under surveillance?

Both cars were in heavy traffic southbound. Were there any others? Northbound? On foot?

She stared wildly in every direction, then sprinted north, ducking left down an alley and easing past a row of stinking dustbins. Across the next street she saw an alley running up between two houses. She shot a glance over her shoulder but could see no one following, so dashed into that narrow space. The rain was easing a little. Her brain was racing. She knew this area like the back of her hand, because for a time, in her previous incarnation, she had lived in a flat near the Seven Dials.

She ran fast, checking every few steps that the package was still firmly at her midriff and that the money was safely wedged in her pockets, then checking over her shoulder. She sped up a tree-lined street of terraced houses, with few people out and about in this horrible weather to notice her. The exercise and the pattering of rain on her face helped to clear her head a little.

Helped her to think.

Abby headed uphill, towards the Dials, then turned right, along another residential street, and emerged above the station. Standing back, out of sight from the road, she watched several cars and commercial vehicles go past, then dashed across Buckingham Road and into another street directly above the station. She ran down that, and again, being careful to wait, crossed another main road, New England Street, and ran on uphill again, through a maze of terraced residential streets and forests of estate agents’ boards.

She got a stitch and stopped for some moments, then carried on at walking pace, gulping down air, perspiring heavily. The rain had stopped almost completely now and there was a strong breeze, which felt good and cooling on her face.

She was thinking clearly now, more clearly than for some hours, as if the shock of what she had seen in the Argus had rebooted her clogged hard drive. Striding purposefully, she kept to the back streets, checking behind her constantly for any sign of a blue or a brown car, or any other car with two people in, but she saw nothing that bothered her.

Had Ricky seen the Argus? Would the story be in other papers also? He would see it, for sure. Wherever he was, he would have papers, radio, television.

She went into a newsagent’s and flicked quickly through some of the national dailies. None of them were carrying the story yet. She bought a copy of the Argus, and stood outside the shop, staring for a long time at the face of the man on the front page. Her emotions were in complete turmoil.

Then, still rooted to her spot in the street, she re-read the entire story. It filled in the gaps in Dave’s past. The silences, the evasive answers, the rapid changing of the subject every time she brought it up. And the remarks Ricky made, testing her on how much she knew about Dave.

How much did Ricky know about him?

She walked along a few paces, then sat down on a damp doorstep, head in her hands. She felt more scared than she had ever been in her life. Scared not just for her mother, but for the whole future.

Life’s a game, Dave liked to tell her. Liked to remind her. A game. This had all started as a game.

Some game.

Life’s not about victims, Abby. It’s about winners and losers.

Tears were misting her eyes again. Her mother’s pitiful voice was ringing in her ears, in her heart. She dialled her mother’s number, then Ricky’s, to no avail.

Ring back. Please ring back. I’ll make a deal.

After some minutes she stood up and walked down a hill, then along a street with the railway track of the London-Brighton line visible through railings beyond. She continued down stone steps, along a short tunnel and up to the ticket office of Preston Park Station.

It was a small commuter station, busy in the rush hour, deserted at most other times of the day. If the police were following her, if they had seen her downtown, near Brighton Station, that was where they might watch out for her. They were less likely to be here, she decided.

Life’s a game.

She studied the timetable, working out a route that would get her to Eastbourne, avoiding Brighton Station, and then to Gatwick Airport, which was now part of the new plan crystallizing in her head.

Her phone suddenly beeped. She pulled it out, hoping desperately it was a message from Ricky, but it wasn’t. It said:

Silence is golden? X

She suddenly realized she hadn’t responded to his last text. She thought for some moments, then replied:

Problemo. x

A few minutes later, as she was stepping on to the train, her phone beeped again, with a reply.

Love, like a river, will cut a new path

whenever it meets an obstacle.

She settled in her seat, too shaken up to think of a quote back. Instead she replied with a single x.

Then she stared bleakly out of the window at the chalk escarpment rising on either side of her as the train pulled out of the station. She was engulfed in icy, dark fear.